


our love is a bagel

by ForASecondThereWedWon



Series: Spidey-shots, Spidey-shots, now they're done, thanks a lot <3 [36]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Michelle Jones, Bisexual Peter Parker, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Face-Sitting, Fuckbuddies, Lovers to Exes to Lovers, Neighbors, Pining, Prompt Fic, Strap-Ons, Table Sex, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:26:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26071873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForASecondThereWedWon/pseuds/ForASecondThereWedWon
Summary: Thanks to a (mortifying) freak accident, Peter Parker comes back into Michelle's life, nine years after their high-school breakup. And this encounter isn't a one-time thing; it looks like she'll be seeing more of him. He's already seenwaytoo much of her.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: Spidey-shots, Spidey-shots, now they're done, thanks a lot <3 [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1368034
Comments: 40
Kudos: 98





	our love is a bagel

**Author's Note:**

> This fic's prompts (from Tumblr): 24. You're my ex but I think I still have feelings for you + 12. We dated in high school but then you moved away but now you're back in town

The windows are painted shut. Even if MJ wanted to open them, the semi-historic status of her walk-up forbids it. She might’ve given them a testing press when she moved in two years ago, but she hasn’t fucked with them since and assumes they’re basically immovable.

She discovers they aren’t when Sadie thrusts into her so hard that the damn thing swings open with a _pop!_ to leave MJ dangling over the sill, four floors above street level.

Naturally, she screams.

So she’s screaming and naked and falling out a window and because the situation’s so dire, Sadie’s trying to hug her closer to pull her back in. Of course, she’s still wearing the damn strap-on, meaning MJ’s screams are alternating in tone a little as the other woman’s hips slam into hers. They’re both slick with sweat and the only rational thought that manages to enter MJ’s mind is that she never should’ve given in to Sadie’s slight kink for exhibitionism and braced her hands against that fucking windowpane.

Her heart’s pounding and everything’s slanting from embarrassing to urgent and, of course, in this city, that’s when Spider-Man usually shows up. Which he does. But he doesn’t come swinging across the skyline or climbing up the wall on his fingertips. The window next door bangs open and he scrambles out, darts sideways, maybe hesitates a split-second in shock (she’s too panicked to be sure), then catches MJ around the waist. The only fortunate thing is that, in the moment of rescue where he tussles against gravity, Sadie’s dildo slips out of her, meaning there’s less to be mortified about. There’s just her total nudity, the visible slipperiness on her thighs, and, of course, her fuck-buddy standing there with a sex toy coated in MJ’s arousal. Besides those things, it’s a completely comfortable situation in which to run into an ex-boyfriend after nine years of silence.

Only she can’t acknowledge that she knows him. Not as Peter Parker. She and Sadie hook up in a way that’s casual but also somewhat regular―enough that Sadie knows to bring the dildo with the circular grooves and MJ preps by filling both of her ice cube trays, but not nearly enough to ever warrant giving away Peter’s secret. She wouldn’t. She lacks the motivation. Things didn’t end badly so much as abruptly when they realized they’d be attending colleges in two different states and that neither of them was really mature enough to commit to long distance at the start of such a monumentally new stage of their lives. So Peter’s just the neighbourhood hero (when did he move back?) and Sadie’s the blonde in the grey cotton bra (they haven’t gotten to the part where MJ runs ice cubes over her nipples yet) and the gooey strap-on. Two strangers. And MJ standing between them trying to think of a way to play this off as not strange at all.

Luckily, Peter’s still more awkward than she’ll ever be; he goes, “Oh, um, ok. Ma’am,” salutes, and climbs hastily back out her window. MJ sees him go up, towards the roof, and feels the familiar gratitude that he’s taking just enough care of himself to recognize that he shouldn’t return next door while Sadie’s a witness. Then her legs become broken stilts beneath her and she wobbles to the floor.

“What the _fuck_!” Sadie erupts.

She unfastens and hurls the strap-on aside (right onto MJ’s clean sheets―she’s asked Sadie not to do that), then rushes to the window, trying to make it close the way it did before. It shuts, at least. MJ plans to do whatever it takes to fake that the historic painted-shut window was never disturbed. Double-sided tape maybe. Or that cheese sauce she makes by hand. That always turns out pretty gluey. Her worry over both the window and her bedding fades when Sadie crouches in front of her and smooths the hair back from her face. She does like Sadie after all. Sadie’s Sadie, but she’s also _Sadie_ : undeniably and reassuringly present as well as freakishly aware of MJ’s moods. MJ can feel her own dazed expression.

“That was _nuts_. Are you alright?”

“As long as I am actually alive and not lying naked on the sidewalk with my head cracked open,” MJ says, her sarcasm quiet but present.

“I’m sure there’s not a scratch on you. That masked bastard is pretty quick.”

This is a compliment.

“Yeah, he… must’ve been close by,” she agrees carefully.

“Must’ve.”

Ok, so Sadie can’t have seen Peter spring out of the neighbour’s window like a jack-in-the-box. Either the angle was wrong or she was a little caught up in her own attempts to haul MJ to safety. Whichever it was, MJ’s relieved.

“Can I get you a drink of water?” Sadie asks, touching MJ’s cheek in a way that’s more practiced than tender. She’s an ultrasound technician. “I’m gonna get you a drink of water.”

On her way out of the bedroom, she picks up her underwear and sweatpants, lines them up, and steps into both layers at the same time, like a firefighter. Well. That confirms the suspicion she created with the way she felt MJ’s face―they won’t be getting to the ice. Their current rendezvous is over. Something about near-death or the intrusion of a strange man has blown Sadie’s lust away like a cloud past the sun. Which sucks because MJ was super horny when she texted her faithful booty call and was anticipating good results from the pressure and speed of Sadie’s thrusts before historic New York vibe-checked MJ in the present.

The water is presented and Sadie has the good grace (or just tactful bedside manner) to pull MJ up to sit on the mattress before she reminds her that she’s about to take off by throwing on her t-shirt. Sadie shrugs as MJ gulps (wow, she is thirsty―hanging out an open window will really take it outta you), then MJ shrugs as she wipes her mouth. It’s not a big deal. The mood’s past and they aren’t and have never been a couple. Sadie won’t ask to stick around so they can make dinner together and MJ won’t invite her to. Still, she’s not going yet, which must mean MJ looks pretty scared. How to tell her it wasn’t the window but the guy who came through it? This is not the kind of conversation they have. Sadie reaches across the bed to grab the strap-on and pulls the sheet over in the same motion, trying to put it around MJ’s shoulders, but it’s twisted and stiff from being lately washed and doesn’t want to go higher than her waist.

“I’m not in shock,” MJ promises. Sadie gives her a look. “I’m _not_.”

“Well, you look… not like yourself.”

“How do I normally look?”

“After this?” she asks, waving the sex toy. “Sweaty and radiant.”

“So then it’s your fault for stopping just because of a minor issue with the window.”

Sadie snorts at this nonsense.

“You still sound like yourself anyway. Snarky and demanding.”

“Only in bed.”

“I only know you in bed,” Sadie jokes back in a more intimate tone. It’s only mostly true. She cares. They’ve been doing this a while.

A minute goes by as MJ tucks the sheet around herself and Sadie watches her like she might pass out.

“I didn’t mean _demanding_ ,” Sadie belatedly corrects. “Confident. Powerful. A good feminist who knows what she wan―”

“Shut up. It always makes me uncomfortable when you start being nice to me. With your mouth,” MJ corrects when her hook-up raises an eyebrow. “With your mouth when you’re speaking complimentary words,” she says, mock-irritated after Sadie lifts the other eyebrow too.

“Will you be alright?”

“I’m already fine. Shitty windows and Spider-Man are just part of the NYC experience,” she says to Sadie, an out-of-towner. MJ can’t remember where she’s from originally and they don’t do much small talk these days.

“I actually didn’t think he was anymore. Hasn’t he, like, not been around here for a while?”

“Hasn’t he?” MJ stares at the wall and tries to sound disinterested.

“It’s cool that he’s back, but if I see him again, I hope it’s under different circumstances.”

“Because you don’t want me to have an untimely death, right?”

“Oh, is that what you thought I meant? No, I was just wishing I’d been dressed.” But Sadie kisses MJ’s forehead to counteract her harsh reply. It’s different from the way she usually says goodbye―with a quick swat on the ass. She stands, finds her shoes and phone, and turns to go.

“Put that thing in a plastic bag or something,” MJ instructs, rubbing her forehead at the way Sadie just lets the unwashed strap-on swing at her side.

“‘That thing,’” Sadie echoes, offended, as she grabs a grocery bag from the back of MJ’s door. “As if Huge Jackman’s never done anything for you.”

“Stop calling it that.”

“Huge Jackman.”

“You’re fucked up,” MJ informs her lightly.

“Maybe so.” Sadie salutes in the style of Spider-Man. (MJ flinches on the inside from the deeper feelings trying to surface while outwardly rolling her eyes.) “Take ‘er easy.”

“Get home safe.”

With a wave exchanged, Sadie leaves the room. MJ hears her close the main door of the apartment behind her. She wriggles into an enormous crewneck sweatshirt and makes herself get up to lock it. Then, she rattles around in her bedside drawer for her vibrator and goes back to bed, determined to drive Peter Parker out of her head and back into her past.

* * *

It doesn’t take long to determine that her ex-boyfriend didn’t just happen to be next door when Sadie’s hips launched her through a window, nor was he visiting a friend. He _lives_ there. The wall that encloses MJ’s bedroom on one side encloses one of the rooms of his apartment on the other. As for details on what’s brought him back to the city after his years in Denver (as she heard through Ned a few times before they drifted without having their closeness to Peter in common anymore), she’s both burningly curious and dedicated to appearing like she couldn’t care less.

It gives her mixed feelings that she and Peter run into each other a lot. The first time, they meet on the stairs in their building and he’s carrying a cardboard box. They don’t speak beyond an awkward greeting and Peter blurting out the obvious: “I just moved in!” He could probably stand there holding the box all day without his arms getting tired―MJ can’t help that her eye is drawn to the way his biceps stuffed into his sleeves look like cats do in pictures where they’ve wriggled into the sleeves of their owners’ sweaters―but they don’t prolong the encounter. The second time, MJ’s coming home when she sees Peter step out his door and hastily fishes her phone from her purse, pretending to be on a call. They nod to each other and he looks like he might try to say something to her, phone call or not, but he never does. Once she’s in her apartment, she wonders if she threw him off by addressing her fake call to the first name that popped into her head: May. Which, of course, is the name of Peter’s beloved aunt. MJ’s really excelling at convincing Peter that his proximity has no effect on her. If he’s wondering.

She would be, in his position, she thinks. Were she the one who’d been gone such a long time and suddenly presented with a former acquaintance as a next-door neighbour, she would wonder what the other person thought of her moving in. It should be a gift, in a city this size. Their particular history shouldn’t matter more than the value of having a neighbour you can trust to turn down their music to a respectful decibel, or keep their place clean so they don’t attract roaches to your shared part of the building, or not snitch to the landlord when you pop a historic window like bubble wrap. For fuck’s sake, they’ve been strangers to the events of each other’s daily lives longer than they were ever friends! Way longer than they were dating. What would make the most sense would be to slip back into an easy friendship _now_ , make an effort before too many weeks go by and the habit of avoiding his eye when they pass each other in the hall or on the stairs becomes irreversible. So what if he saw her totally naked? Being Spider-Man has to be sorta like being a doctor―you see so much shit, including naked people, that it barely even registers. Just part of the job. It’s not as though her front door was unlocked and he walked in as Peter Parker to see Sadie screwing her. Anything he sees as Spider-Man shouldn’t count.

He never saw her naked as Peter. The fact that they didn’t get to anything beyond over-the-clothes touching was something she was glad of when they broke up. In her mind, it made them less connected. It was _supposed_ to make him easier to forget. That worked pretty well for a lot of years, all that time MJ spent keeping distance between them, assuming it was what they would both want, because distance was enough to split them up. As long as she maintained the distance, it proved that breaking up was the right thing. They wanted to be separate and not together, so that’s how they would be. But now he’s living next door.

She doesn’t know if there’s a way to be distant and sharing a wall. The friends thing seems like the best plan. She’ll start them on the right path. Now. Tonight. Putting her hair down, then up again, then back down with only her uneasy reflection for guidance, she finally makes herself walk out of her apartment.

Peter’s at his door, just coming home by the looks of it. Perfect. He has his back to her and it’s a fairly broad back these days, broad enough to hide the petite woman MJ sees when she’s close. Peter has one hand on the key he’s turning in the lock and the other in the woman’s back pocket, presumably squeezing her ass. MJ doesn’t look long enough to know. Her eyes catch Peter’s when she passes and he glances up at the sound of footsteps. It’s likely that her expression of determination has writhed into panic. Of course, she can’t speak to him now, in front of his girlfriend or whatever this woman is to him, so MJ continues straight down the hall like she never intended to stop at his door. Ask how he’s doing. His aunt. Ned. Laugh about the circumstances of him rescuing her. About old times. Old feelings.

Old? Those feelings are ancient. MJ works harder to convince herself with every minute she spends standing alone in the stairwell, waiting to creep back to her apartment.

* * *

MJ texts Sadie to hook up more frequently, then not at all when she worries about being needy, which just makes Sadie tell her that there’s spontaneous and then there’s erratic, and Sadie does not need erratic in her life right now. Sobered by this assertion, MJ steadies herself and they go back to fucking once every week or two. While Sadie’s eating her out, MJ remembers Peter’s hand in that woman’s pocket and squeezes her eyes shut tightly.

She continues to see him. More than she sees any of their other neighbours. Lucky them, having such compatible schedules. It’s officially been long enough that she’s weird now―weirder than fake calls and hiding in stairwells―and he’s weird too. She doesn’t get it. Her stumbling across him bringing a guest back to his apartment is not on par with him finding her and _her_ guest right in the middle of the act. How to make friends with Peter the neighbour when the silent crush she nurtured in high school miraculously bloomed into four months of dating, when she blushed as he linked his fingers with hers, and when, now, he brings five different women to his apartment in a span of three weeks? She learns that the room on the other side of the wall is Peter’s bedroom. Not knowing was preferable to the thumps, the high-pitched sounds. He’s either a talented lay or goes to bed with a lot of liars.

The next time Sadie comes over, MJ yanks the door open to meet her and folds around her, right there in the hallway, as they make out. Sadie rolls with it. That only makes MJ feel guiltier; the longer they’re in the hall, the greater the chance that Peter will see them. He’ll bear witness to her not being alone either. Her motives are shameful and she does secret penance, using up her ice, concentrating hard when she fingers Sadie and feels her uncomplicated panting on her neck.

But MJ’s never ahead of it, this weird feeling of lagging as she tries to reposition herself, Peter, the distance that belongs to them. One morning, she gets up at five to buy fresh bread from a farmer’s market instead of a grocery store and returns to their building, their floor, to find Peter receiving early-morning neck kisses in his open doorway from a short, black-haired man (a departing one-night stand, by the intimacy, by the fact of Peter’s pajamas) who mumbles in quiet, passionate Italian against MJ’s neighbour’s skin while she tries to get into her apartment as quickly as possible. She bites into a loaf without cutting it, then tears a messy chuck away to slather the still-warm interior with butter. Bread is possibly her only true friend on this earth.

Is she funny or is she just sad? Her brain seems faster, practicing how quickly it can distract itself whenever she sees Peter. She’s never not thought about him so much. Not sleeping together in high school begins to feel like a mistake. There’s a pain in her foot that she goes to her doctor about, only to be more or less told that she’s imagining it, that stress is manifesting as this random bastard foot pain. It could be true. She could need a new doctor. The compromise is to quit wearing this particular pair of flats she hates anyway and only owns for work. MJ next leaves her apartment in old high-tops, feeling tired and distrustful and therefore sure to make someone laugh today with some quip. Peter laughs before she says a word.

“Sorry, they just gave me such a flashback,” he tells her, slowing his steps to climb the stairs, putting his head level with her face instead of her shoes. “They look like the ones you used to wear.”

“Same ones.”

“Really?”

“I like how they’re broken in.”

“Where’s the line between ‘broken in’ and ‘worn out’?” Peter wonders with a smile.

 _My forehead, probably_ , MJ thinks. She shrugs. How strange that he’s here, standing on the same step she is. She’s gotten so used to not interacting that he started to seem like a ghost. The kind where they tolerate each other in their space, an understanding between realms. The kind that only really forces acknowledgement certain nights. A banging comes through the wall.

“You wanna grab a bagel or something? What are you doing right now?”

“Nothing,” she tells him, though she’s the one heading out and he’s the one heading home. “Let’s get a bagel.”

What’s amazing is how flat Peter’s been in her head―dimensionless enough to slip between a pair of receipts she kept for tax purposes and then forgot to throw away. The roundness of him over bagels is startling. He’s a rotating bookshelf, revolving and packed with stories she’s never heard. While he’s talking about mountains, a poppyseed stuck between his front teeth, MJ understands that she’s going to text Sadie after this and end things. She plants her elbows on the table, feeling as much on home turf as though she grew up in this little breakfast dive. The elbow’s in something sticky; MJ tips coffee onto a paper napkin and cleans herself with that, always watching Peter. He’s a new person with the original guy still inside. He’s sweet. Maybe their distance is like the center of this bagel she’s finishing slowly: not a gulf, just a hole in the middle of a circle. They don’t need to bridge two parts, just quit being numb to their connection. But all those women. That man, with his Romance language. When it’s over and she walks out ahead of him, she feels like he’s leaving for Colorado all over again, even as he’s right at her back, catching the door so it doesn’t bang into him because she let go too soon. It was heavy.

Sadie’s Sadie. MJ calls instead of texting and finds that she’s crying on a park bench, thankful for the hot sun on the back of her neck and the silence of her plentiful tears. Sadie will miss her, no more or less. Only at the end is MJ realizing that this will be a loss. Feelings aren’t simple. Someone has cared about her and been happy to see her name appear on their phone. Her vagina is the sole part of her that didn’t struggle with the ‘casual’ half of ‘casual sex,’ but her vagina is also not interested in taking the call. She rides the bus home and a man wheels a suitcase over her foot.

That night, MJ cooks to jazz, shrimp sticking in the pan, noodles soft. The smoke alarm sings back at her for her attempts to make garlic bread in the toaster oven. There’s a rapid knock at her door. She eyes the smoke detector, then leaves it. It’s Peter at the door.

“I heard the alarm. Do you need help?”

“I…”

The collar of his t-shirt is oddly limp, like it’s been stretched aside. There’s a smear of lipstick low on his neck. MJ angles out of her doorway and looks sideways. Huh. There’s a woman poking her head out of Peter’s doorway too.

“Sensitive smoke detector,” she tells him with a tight, apologetic smile. “Not exactly a disaster.”

“Oh, did you burn something? Do you wanna come over and eat with… us?”

He seems to remember about the woman then and looks uncomfortable. MJ lets him feel that for a minute. She allows him to look at her while that uncomfortable feeling surges inside him like a rising tide. Why should he be uncomfortable?

“No,” MJ says bluntly. “I don’t.”

Peter nods and backs away.

* * *

Over the next two weeks, he still has guests in his apartment. She doesn’t always see the moment of arrival or departure, but she’ll hear him put music on―something, as a teenager, he only ever did to be attentive to other people―or have to plug her ears to the thudding against the wall. What changes is the shifty way he looks at her when they see each other. He looks like he expects to get in trouble. Does he think she’s angry at him? She isn’t, honestly, just a keen observer.

MJ’s been bringing herself under the lens, witnessing her own reactions. Her relationship with love is better than she thought. Specifically, when she stayed and Peter left, she thought love was something she didn’t need. She was younger and now she’s older and ready to accept some silly things she scorned at eighteen. That love isn’t one shot, but sometimes many, many chances. That the same love can come around again like a merry-go-round horse. That you can fall in love young and never really forget it, even if you didn’t say it out loud, at the time or ever. Though love is closeness, love is also absence. Distance. Yes, love can live in distance, with a little air and a little sun. What’s time to truth? What’s geography?

Waiting for Peter makes MJ feel sure of herself. There’s nothing to be angry about.

On a Sunday morning, she’s putting actual effort into trying to get the window to close properly when she hears a familiar _pop_. Gingerly, she presses her window open and looks over to see Peter resting his forearms on the sill of _his_ formerly-sealed window. He’s drinking a coffee. Fully aware of her presence, he turns to look at her and smiles, raising his mug in greeting. She puts down the wood glue and leaves the window wide open. Traffic sounds follow her to the kitchen, where she grabs a slice of banana bread before returning, pulling up a chair so she can have breakfast at her window too. The two of them could be a couple stools apart at a diner. They don’t speak. MJ feels so close to him she could cry. The crumbs from her food have four stories to fall, where they’ll eventually be found by pigeons.

“You wanna come over later?” he asks her eventually.

They’re unlocking the doors to their respective apartments after bumping into each other on the sidewalk, approaching the same building from opposite directions. They spoke on the way inside, all the way up the stairs. They walked slower down the hallway to say more words and swap more smiles. But they said goodbye already, before Peter’s question. MJ looks at him. Her heart swells up big in her chest, bigger than it feels like there’s room for. There’s been nobody over there with him in a long while. She studies his face, which looks more than friendly, like any answer but the one he wants to hear would wound him. That’s something she’s never wanted to do.

“Ten minutes?” MJ asks.

“Five,” he challenges.

“I can do five.”

It’s her first time knocking at his door. She changed her jeans, her bra, took off her earrings, brushed her teeth, soaked her neck in perfume that smells richly of late-summer flowers. The odour of his body―the wondering about it―has her tense as she waits to be let in. The wait is short.

His hands grab her, hold her tight, but his lips tremble with their first experimental kiss. MJ presses the door shut without looking back. Lets her keys fall. She pushes her hips against his and he’s already turned on, so hard it must be killing him. The second time their mouths brush, she fears this may actually be bad. His mouth is too slack, his jaw too clenched. Fortunately, Peter shows her that he’s just holding back severely because when he stops holding back… well. He’s added an island on locking wheels to his kitchen, with a low shelf underneath for storage space. They stagger into it, legs knocking the protruding handles of pots and pans to send them all clanging to the floor. When she lifts a foot high to step over a metal colander, Peter’s hand darts out and grabs her thigh; suddenly, her ass is pressed to the island and he’s rolling his hips hard into hers, palm hot through her jeans. MJ squeezes her hands between their bodies to unbuckle his belt and unfasten his pants; she palms the head of his dick through his boxers. It’s not enough, not close enough.

They make a breakaway from the clutter and she laughs―as bright and bursting as a torn-open orange―when Peter hauls her into his arms, impatient with her cautious tread around his spill of cookware. He practically tosses her onto his modest kitchen table and she grabs his face in both hands, kissing him deeply with tongue, as she wiggles her ass to the edge, thighs wide to accommodate his. The force of his return kisses makes her tilt backward. His fingers are on the button of her jeans, the fly, stroking the soft material of her underwear with his thumb. MJ plants a hand and lifts herself up quickly and they pry her jeans out from under her. Her shoes go too. The table legs bang loudly off the floor with this shifting of her weight, making Peter grin. He looks young and delirious after whipping his t-shirt off. He looks happy. Her hands clutch greedily at his bare skin.

She chokes on a wet breath when he hooks a finger around the crotch of her underwear to tug them off, knuckle pushing fleetingly against her, dipped in her wetness like an apple in candy coating. It’s lucky that Peter thinks about getting a condom because MJ flushes to find it hasn’t crossed her mind. He sprints away and comes back before she has her cropped cardigan fully unbuttoned. Does it happen too fast? No, it seems like it’s right on time when Peter whips his jeans and boxers down his legs and tucks his chin to watch himself roll the condom down his dick, MJ’s gaze going from his hands to his expression of harried concentration like flipping pages of a magazine. Ready, he bends his knees. She angles her hips.

They’re seventeen, turning eighteen soon, and she’s on top of the world the first time he holds her hand.

The stretch of him inside her would be killer if she weren’t this wet for him. The table scrapes the floor and Peter breathes heavily into her hair, sounding like he needs a moment to cool off. She doesn’t want a moment. MJ lays flat on her back and he follows her down with the lightest touch to the back of his neck. There’s barely enough room for her, the top of her head skimming the wall if she really straightens her spine, but she braces her hands on either side of her head and stares Peter in the eye to let him know she’s serious. It can be fast. The night is young and they’re not too old for miracles like second chances and short refractory periods. He groans because they’ve scarcely begun and already the thought of another round has her reactively seizing around his cock.

“My bad,” she says with a smirk.

“You’re good,” he counters, diving for a kiss. “You’re so fucking good.”

His hands wrap around her from underneath, gripping the back of her sweater, grasping her shoulders from behind. All the time, he bucks, jubilantly, honestly, like he’s not afraid of hurting her. This is what she wants. When he caresses up her bent arms to learn the shape of her wrists with his fingertips, then place his palms over the back of her hands, MJ’s eyes roll back and closed. Her back bows slightly as she tilts to make sure he drags across her clit when he thrusts. What will they do if his table collapses under her full weight and most of his, with him bent over her body? Continue on the floor, probably.

Peter’s mouth leaves hers and she moans loudly without interference― _mmm_ ing and _uhhh_ ing and _Jesus, fuck, Peter, right there_ ing. He acquaints himself with her neck in quick, sharp nips before dipping further to burrow his nose against her sternum, inhaling and exhaling hard as he hunches over her like a question mark and pounds his hips forward like he’s dying and her cunt’ll give him five more minutes of life. If he’s still running on that power and responsibility mantra, the motherfucker’s responsibility must be through the roof because his power is immense. He noses her partially undone cardigan aside to suck her nipple through the scant peekaboo lace of her bra. MJ’s legs urge his hips to slow, her arms almost worn out from stopping her head bumping the wall. Grinding her clit hard into his pubic bone, she comes with a shaky sob, eyes open to a ceiling identical to hers in the next apartment over. How many months late can you welcome somebody to the building?

He’s noisy in the buildup to his release, both from his mouth and in the sloppy sounds of his dick navigating her flooded, spasming channel post-climax, but quiet when he finally lets go inside her. Peter turns his face up to MJ. It’s kind of beautiful, the dishevelled hair, the ascending look in his eyes. She grips him reassuringly with her thighs and hangs on even when tough-guy’s knees almost give out, though she’d never be able to keep him on his feet if he dropped. How she _feels_ is as if she could walk through fire carrying him on her back.

The fear, when they break apart, seems to be mutual. But for the way she throbs for what he removed, it could have simply not happened. Peter runs a hand over his face. MJ stays put, breathing hard. He throws out the condom that is more evidence; the sensation between her legs will fade, but latex has gotta last a lifetime in a landfill. Sweetly, he collects her jeans and underwear from the floor and sets them on a chair at the table before standing there like the uncertain teenage boy she knew.

“ _You’re_ good,” she notes, catching him off guard. He laughs, pleased, self-conscious, back to pleased, and turns freshly pink. “I can see what all your guests have been screaming about.”

The contentment leaves his expression.

“Oh, M, I―”

“It couldn’t bother me less,” MJ tells him truthfully. She sits up and wonders if her legs will refuse to stand when she tries. Better hold off another minute. “You had to get that good with somebody. And I’m glad I won’t be lowering my expectations after Sadie showed me how much I deserve in bed.”

“Sadie? The blonde woman with the…” Peter motions between his legs at the homegrown organic penis that hangs in place of the purple facsimile Sadie was sporting when the two of them met.

“Yep.”

She gets off the table and has to stop him from shadowing her into the bathroom with a hand to his tautly muscled chest. Down, boy. Let her pee in peace.

They lie in bed together after that, on clean sheets that are pretty poorly secured. So that’s how Peter spent his five minutes before she came over. In appreciation and the comfort she already feels around him, she finishes unbuttoning her cardigan and takes it off. The bra follows―after he swiftly but lightly grabs her arm to take a good long look at her wearing it. There’s a twitch from his lap as she wriggles fully naked under the sheet with him.

They talk school for a while, friends, dates that went nowhere, student loans. Then he asks, “Did you eat?” and the question compels MJ onto her knees with a sly smile. She bypasses the hopeful tent he’s pitching down south to ease her weight onto his chest, tucking her legs around his arms. The look she gives him says, _I just know you’re good at oral. Don’t make me wait any longer_. Maintaining eye contact, Peter rubs her lower back, then guides her forward. Again, she has her palm slapped to one of his goddamn walls when orgasm hits, riding the hot, mutable surface of his tongue. The other hand reached behind her a few minutes ago to pump what she could of his cock, giving him his while she got hers. Soon after calling her neighbour’s name at the wall he shares with her empty apartment, she shuffles backwards to line him up and take him deep. The visual of jerking him off by hand appeals to her, but the craving to mount him is too strong to ignore.

They argue passionately about who’s madder when he has to make her get off so he can put a condom on again.

Quick and hot in the kitchen was good; slow and smoldering in his bed is better. MJ’s sure Peter would flip her and chase bliss at a single nod of her head, but he seems to be enjoying her on top too much to suggest a return to that fucking-where-he-eats-breakfast haste. She rocks to her own rhythm―it’s self-serving and irregular, but the friction is heating her nicely. Her g-spot could be a lottery scratch ticket. The head of his cock, a lucky coin. While she swirls her hips, fingers in her own hair, his hands move worshipfully over her ass and thighs. She traces a pinky down the center of his chest and leans forward to kiss him. The smells of her and him are in her nose when she has to inhale a harsh breath because he won’t break the kiss. His hands knead the back of her thighs and MJ grips his hair, slamming her hips back. Peter releases a high gasp into her mouth. She sucks at his lower lip, his tongue, teasing him with shallowness now, working the head of his cock until he’s squirming and moaning and taking actions that say _to hell with you_ and softer things besides, keeping her legs still and driving up into her. She catches his lip in her teeth when she grins.

So he doesn’t think he has all the control, MJ pushes up and sits tall astride him, legs straining to sustain the sudden speed of her bounce. He frames her breast with his index finger and thumb. Only when Peter has his other hand between her legs, scrubbing at her clit, does he close his grip and pinch down on her nipple. Her third orgasm is the least special, because it feels like they’ve been doing this for years. Wait, then maybe it’s the most special. MJ folds and rolls compliantly after her body quits singing and settles into a well-tuned hum; Peter hikes her leg, somehow getting his shoulder into the moist crook of her knee, and finishes with a half-dozen deep thrusts, grinding her name out through his teeth. His scent is sweat and cherries, wet and sweet. Behind her closed eyelids, she pictures a wave crashing on a breakwater.

They’re above the sheets now, cotton in mobile wrinkles as they breathe and sigh. His fingers delicately map her bones through the back of her hand. He tries to hold her like he could press her right through his skin, but, body lax, MJ tells him to leave space. She won’t erase their distance. She just can’t bear it.


End file.
